In 2016, Innu poet Natasha Kanapé Fontaine and Quebec-American novelist Deni Ellis Béchard began a no-holds-barred conversation about racism between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. How can we coexist if our shared history is marked by shame, wounds and anger? How can we make white people realize the invisible privilege of historical domination? How can we heal Indigenous people from the stigma of cultural genocide? These questions run through their exchanges: Natasha recounts her discovery of residential schools, her obsession with the Oka crisis, life in the community of Pessamit; Deni talks about her father's everyday racism, segregation against African-Americans, and her identity as a Quebecer in the United States.

Five years later, Deni and Natasha picked up their pens again to continue this “meeting of the word that opens up”. Returning to the intimate tone and intellectual abundance of their first exchange, they tackle topics of burning current events: the mobilization of Black Lives Matter after the death of George Floyd, the wildfires in California, the presidential campaign against a backdrop of rising intolerance; the Wet'suwet'en uprising and rail blockades, denunciation of the Trudeau government's policy of recognition. Then the unthinkable happens: Joyce Echaquan, a 37-year-old Atikamekw woman, dies under racist insults from two nurses at the Joliette hospital. A wave of indignation rises…

By crossing their words with frankness, their letters deepen the dialogue necessary for reconciliation between our peoples. The result is a humanist and universal book on the relationship with others and respect for difference.